The Anthropologist and the Siesta
by bailey80
Summary: The squints desperately need Dr. Brennan's help to identify an abnormality on a bone but they encounter a brick wall in the form of an FBI Agent when they try to wake her up from an afternoon nap.


"Attention squints," Special Agent Seeley Booth announced as he swiped his card and walked onto the forensic platform. "Dr. Brennan has fallen asleep in her office. As you all know, she hasn't been sleeping well. She's also been cranky."

Two heads bobbed in agreement with him, no one had escaped the pregnant doctor's sleep deprived wrath the past few weeks.

"I'm not sure what or who convinced her to lay down on her couch, but she did, and she's sleeping like a rock at the moment. Therefore, if anyone wakes her up, I will kill them. Any questions?" Booth didn't give the men a chance to respond before he turned on his heel and walked back down the platform towards Brennan's office.

"But I needed to ask her for an opinion on this abnormality of the femur," Wendell asked exasperated.

"You go right ahead and do that man," Hodgins' grinned.

"He wouldn't actually kill me, would he?"

"Who wouldn't actually kill you?" Cam asked as she joined them on the platform.

"Booth."

"That depends on what you did to him."

"Dr. Brennan's asleep and Booth has requested that she stays asleep as long as possible."

"Yeah, you better find a way to work this without her." Cam said as she turned toward Wendell.

"I'll give it another look, but we only have a few hours to figure this out before the local cops claim the body again."

"I can't believe Hacker agreed to that. Look, I'll give someone in charge a call, see if I can buy us some more time. You keep looking at the bone, do that thing Dr. Brennan does where she stares it them until they speak."

"I don't think that works for anyone but her."

Hodgins leaned over and picked up the femur with a gloved hand and held it up to the light for a few minutes, doing his best Brennan impersonation. "Well it certainly wouldn't work for me. Unless maybe I found a bug," he shrugged.

"Thanks for the support guys."

Wendell spent the next hour staring at the femur, which had a small, irregular growth of extra bone just distal to the femoral neck. It had to mean something, he just wasn't sure what. He was also sure that Dr. Brennan would know with just a glance. It didn't make any sense to him that she was sound asleep in her office, when she could make major progression in a case that they were on a very small timeframe to solve.

He glanced again at the clock. "This is crazy." He walked quickly but quietly toward Brennan's office, determined that nothing, not even a rather large, rather overprotective FBI agent was going to stop him from asking the anthropologist a question. As he approached the door a crudely handwritten sign stuck to it, caught his attention.

"Stop. If you really think it's worth your life, then open the door. It's not locked," Wendell read aloud before exclaiming, "Really dude?"

He returned to the platform, still carrying around the damaged femur, trying desperately to figure out what it meant. Hodgins was already there, examining a spider he found in the victim's hair. "Did you ask her?"

"I chickened out. He put a sign on the door."

"Come on, you really think that Booth will shoot you if you wake her up?"

"I'm not sure that he won't."

"Do you really need her look at that?"

"I hate to admit it, but yes, I do. My mind has shut off, I cannot comprehend what it might mean, even though I know it has to mean something."

"Give me the bone, I'll take it to her. Booth isn't going to shoot anyone."

Without expression, Wendell handed the long bone over to Hodgins and watched as he walked toward Brennan's office. Hodgins stopped only briefly to roll his eyes at the sign, before very quietly pushing the door open.

Brennan was still sound asleep on her couch, curled up on her side like a kitten. A kitten who had recently eaten an entire beach ball. Booth sat up instantly at the sound of the opening door.

"Hey, man, listen I know she needs to sleep, but the North Carolina police will be here in like half an hour to claim these bones, and Wendell cannot figure out what this means."

Booth stared down the bug man.

"This, see," he pointed toward the knot on the bone, "this growth here, he doesn't know what it might mean," Hodgins' voice rose considerately as Booth's face became more stern.

"We have jurisdiction over any local agency, the state goons can wait until Bones wakes up."

"Yeah, I know, but apparently Hacker made some sort of deal with these guys, I'm not sure the details. Cam is trying to stall. But, I mean, how long is she going to nap?"

Booth eased his way toward the door, taking Hodgins along with him by the lapel, all the while keeping a careful eye that his girlfriend was still asleep. She only stirred slightly as he pushed Hodgins out the door. "She's going to nap as long as she needs to nap. She isn't going to be woken up by any bug guy, squint, or the damn President himself. You got it? She needs to sleep, and that's what she's going to do. So, either find a way to hang on to that bone until she wakes up, or find a way to figure out what it means without her. Those are your only options." He was speaking in the loudest whisper Hodgins had ever heard.

"Come on Booth, this is an important case, she'll be upset if she knows you didn't let us wake her up."

"Oh, no you don't. She'll be upset if she gets woken up because her intern is too incompetent to perform a simple task without her. Figure it out," Booth resisted the urge to slam the door but rather gave the curly haired squint a not so gentle shove away from the doorway.

As he turned around, he saw Brennan starting to stir on the couch. "Hodgins will die."

"Booth? What's wrong?" She yawned, but didn't open her eyes.

He sat down on the couch beside her and swept a stray hair out of her eyes, "Nothing's wrong Bones, just go back to sleep."

Back on the platform Hodgins was trying to pull his sleeve back far enough while simultaneously stretching his neck in an attempt to see if Booth had left a bruise on his shoulder.

"I told you not to bother them," Wendell shook his head, but didn't take his eyes off of the femur that was causing them all a giant headache.

"Any luck with the bone?" Cam asked as she reentered the area.

Wendell's face said it all, "Please tell me you bought us more time."

"They'll be here in an hour. How long do you need?"

"I think Dr. Brennan will need about five seconds to figure it out, but I'm not sure how long she's going to need to finish her nap."

"Just go wake her up."

"We've tried," Hodgins leaned his head over so that Cam could see his shoulder through his now stretched out shirt collar, "He hurt me."

"Don't whine, it's not becoming."

"I don't like to give up, Dr. Saroyan but I think I'm too close to this. I've looked at it for so long that I'm not even seeing it anymore."

"You two may be afraid of Booth, but I'm not. I'll go wake her up, but you," she pointed toward Wendell, "better be prepared for her wrath when you admit that you couldn't figure this out without her."

Cam sauntered toward the closed office door, not even stopping to glance at the warning sign as she gingerly opened the door. "Booth-" she started to speak but stopped when she saw the couple.

They were laying together on Brennan's couch. Her head was laying on his chest and Booth had his arms wrapped protectively around her. The scientist had a smile on her face that Cam had never really seen there before. Even though they had dated in the past, jealousy was the furthest emotion from Cam's mind as she watched Booth sleep with his partner. Cam took a deep breath and walked further into the room, Brennan sighed softly in her sleep and rolled closer to Booth, and Cam watched as he instinctually pulled her tighter. And Cam promptly chickened out.

She returned to the platform to find that the local cops from North Carolina were already there. "Whoa, I thought we had another hour?"

"We're early."

"Listen, we need just a little more time, maybe you can grab some lunch while you're here in DC? I'm sure you're hungry."

"The bones belong to us."

"Hey, I know. I'm not arguing with you. But, we're extending a hand here by not trying to fight this, which you know very well that we could. At least give me a little more time, okay? I have an expert that needs to examine just one bone before they're released to you."

"Where is your expert?"

"She's," Cam stuttered, looking for the right term to use, "unavailable at the moment, but she'll be here shortly."

"Fine, we'll go eat lunch but then we're coming back to claim our body."

"That's perfectly reasonable, thank you."

All three breathed a breath of relief as the agents left the platform in search of food.

"I thought you weren't afraid of Booth?" Hodgins asked with a grin.

"I'm not. They're both asleep now. They were too cute to wake up." Cam shrugged as if this was the most reasonable thing she'd ever said.

Almost an hour later, Cam and Hodgins were still pacing the platform, watching as Wendell struggled to figure out what could've caused the deformity on the bone.

They were all acutely aware of the sound of Dr. Brennan's office door opening, "Thank God," Wendell exclaimed as he saw his boss walk from her office.

"And not a moment too soon," Hodgins noted pointing toward the entrance as the Carolina officials walked back into the room.

Wendell took off down the platform steps, femur still in hand, "Dr. Brennan, I need your help."

"Yes, Mr. Bray?"

"There's an abnormality on this femur and I know it must mean something, but I'm not sure what it means."

"Hmmm, gloves?"

Cam appeared out of nowhere by her side, and handed her two latex gloves.

Brennan took the bone in her hands, and stared down at the small area of extra bone. "I believe this was caused by a congenital abnormality, and isn't related at all to the murder. Although it will help us identify the victim because it's a very rare condition. We already know that she's from North Carolina from the isotope analysis, so it should be easy to track down the victim's name."

"We'll just wait over here while you do that, then we'll take our bones."

"So you're going to let us do all the work and then you'll take the credit?"

"We would've done the work had you given us our bones two hours ago," the agent grinned.

"Why exactly are we giving you the body before our investigation is complete?" Dr. Brennan asked.

"Our boss requested it, and Assistant Director Hacker agreed. I believe they're old college buddies."

"Well Andrew and I are old buddies as well, I'll give him a call, it's irresponsible to hand over a case to a lesser agency."

Cam and Hodgins exchanged looks with one another.

"Why wasn't all this taken care of earlier?"

"You were asleep."

"You could've woken me up."

Three sets of eyes immediately turned to stare at Booth before Cam answered the oblivious doctor, "We didn't want to disturb you Dr. Brennan."

"Well I'm glad you didn't, I was rather tired. And it's not like it was too complicated a matter to solve. I probably could've done it in my sleep."

"You practically did, Bones."

"Booth?"

"Yeah?"

"I'm hungry."

"Do you want to go home and eat?"

"Yes, I believe everything is under control here."

"I'm sure Wendell can handle it without you for the evening, can't you Wendell?" Booth slapped the man on the back, then placed his hand on Brennan's back, "Let's go Bones." Booth took one last chance to glance back over his shoulder and smirk at the three squints left standing on the forensic platform.

Cam let out a loud sigh and shook her head, "This is going to be a long nine months."


End file.
